Listen to Sneha Subramanian Kanta read her poem “House 19, Doetinchem” published in Shō No. 5 (Summer 2024).
About this Poem: This poem is written for Sylvia, a beloved who lives in Doetinchem. She is a painter, poet, and creates many wonderful things.
I return to The Diary of Virginia Woolf: 1925 – 1930 published by Hogarth Press, 1977. Woolf writes, “I can only note that the past is beautiful because one never realises an emotion at the time. It expands later, & thus we don’t have complete emotions about the present, only about the past.” I adore the sincerity of an emotion expanding in the future— making a space for itself to burgeon into memory. A central practice in my life is to be present, and yet, there is a way for the emotion to lengthen in beautiful ways once time has passed. Doetinchem is a historic city located along the Oude IJssel river, and important for me due to her presence. In writing about place, we are a part of the landscape. This poem is an ode, a reflection, a song of gratitude.
Born in Mumbai, Sneha Subramanian Kanta is an award-winning writer, editor, and academician residing in Mississauga. She is an author of six chapbooks, including Redapples falling still (Small Harbor Publishing, 2026) and Every Elegy Is A Love Poem (Broken Sleep Books, 2026). She is the 2025 Woodhaven Artist in Residence at UBC Okanagan. Her work has been widely anthologized, including in the Penguin Book of Indian Poets (ed. Jeet Thayil). Her work has been recognized and supported by several institutions, some of which include Canada Council for the Arts, Ontario Arts Council, Writers’ Trust of Canada, The Charles Wallace Trust, The Vijay Nambisan Foundation, Rutgers-Camden, and British Council. She is one of the founding editors of Parentheses Journal.